Age: 60 Hometown: Family from Jackson County; moved to Tallahassee in 1998. Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics, Yale University; master’s in business administration, Stanford University; law degree, University of Florida College of Law. Occupation: Attorney Community involvement: Coach for YMCA and Tallahassee parks and recreation; former Leon High mock-trial coach. Family: Wife, Janet and four children. Political party: Republican. Campaign finance: Raised $191,593. Spent $182,180 Campaign website: votepetewilliams.com

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State Attorney Willie Meggs says that after seven terms in office, he still has the passion and energy for the job and wants to serve another four years.

“I’m just not ready to quit working,” Meggs said. “I enjoy doing what we do. I think we help a lot of people. We work to keep our city safe.”

But his opponent in the Nov. 6 general election, former statewide prosecutor Pete Williams, says he would bring a more innovative approach as chief prosecutor for the 2nd Judicial Circuit and that Meggs has served long enough.

“I think the voters need to ask themselves why Mr. Meggs is running again and who will do a better job leading this office over the next four years,” he said.

The race has grown acrimonious in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Williams is running TV ads accusing Meggs of “pulling a fast one” by leaving office for 30 days in late 2008 to take a half-million dollar payout of his state retirement money. But Meggs responded by saying his participation in the public-employee retirement program called DROP didn’t cost taxpayers a dime and that Williams is distorting the truth.

Meggs accused Williams of exaggerating in campaign ads his experience prosecuting violent crime and said he hasn’t prosecuted a single violent crime over the past 12 years. Williams, who’s held a series of state-agency posts since heading up the Office of Statewide Prosecutor from 2004 to 2008, was an assistant state attorney in the 1st Judicial Circuit for more than nine years, where he prosecuted cases from violent crime to child sexual abuse, he said.

Both Williams and Meggs have put their own cash into their campaigns, though Williams is self-funding to a much greater extent than Meggs. Williams has given his campaign $145,000 of his own money, pushing his fund-raising total to $191,593, according to Florida Division of Elections records. Meggs has contributed $31,251 of his own money toward his fund-raising total of $87,983.

MEGGS

Meggs, who had no opposition when he ran four years ago, wasn’t necessarily expecting competition when Williams filed to run in April on the last day of qualifying. He admits he’s not fond of campaigning, though he said it has prompted him to take a look back at his office’s accomplishments over the years.

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Meggs, 69, joined the Tallahassee Police Department as a patrol officer in 1965 and went to work as a Leon County sheriff’s deputy in 1968 before returning to TPD a couple of years later as an investigator. He graduated from the Florida State University College of Law in 1976 and went to work as an assistant state attorney, a post he held until he was first elected as state attorney in 1985.

He said he’s devoted 47 years of his life to the criminal-justice system.

“I feel like we have a great community,” Meggs said. “I’m real pleased that you don’t ride down our streets like some towns and see strip clubs and a seedy side of life, even though we do have our problems in certain areas. I know I make a difference every day.”

He said that under his leadership, the 2nd Judicial Circuit ranks second per capita in the state for sending murderers to prison and third for prison admissions of all crimes.

He also touts the fact that since 1995, more than 32,000 first-time misdemeanor offenders in Leon County have been diverted from the court system. They performed more than 323,000 hours of community service and paid $3.6 million in diversion fees, with nearly $77,000 going to legal aid for the poor.

“We protect the public, so I can be tough,” Meggs said. “I can be compassionate when we need to be compassionate.”

Meggs’ office conducted 219 felony jury trials in 2011 and had a conviction rate of 86 percent in Franklin County, 50 percent in Gadsden County, 100 percent in Jefferson County, 65 percent in Leon County, 58 percent in Liberty County and 64 percent in Wakulla County.

He brushed aside criticism from Williams that his conviction rate is too low, saying he takes on tough cases that sometimes don’t have the evidence needed for a slam dunk.

“You’re not going to win all your trials,” he said. “If you’re winning all your trials, you’re not trying the right cases.”

Meggs said that since he was elected, his office has filed 132,000 felonies. He said about 35 percent of the cases that come into his office are resolved early in the process through pleas, with the rest going to the trial division. Of those cases, most are resolved by a plea or dismissed because of evidence problems. Only about 3 percent of the cases go to trial. Over the past six years, his office has collected more than $1 million in restitution from defendants at the time of their plea, he said.

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During his most recent term, his office secured convictions in high-profile cases including Gary Michael Hilton, who was sentenced to death in the 2007 killing of Crawfordville nurse Cheryl Dunlap, and the two men who killed confidential police informant Rachel Hoffman in 2008.

“I have a great deal of pride in this office,” Meggs said. “I think we’ve built something that’s really, really good, and I just don’t want to see it fall into the hands of an experiment with someone.”

WILLIAMS

Williams’ family goes back four generations in the small community of Malone in Jackson County. His father was an airport manager for Pan Am, and Williams moved frequently growing up. He lived in Miami several times and at various points lived in Central America and the Caribbean.

After earning a law degree from the University of Florida College of Law in 1986, he moved back to the Panhandle, working as a civil and business litigator in Pensacola before joining the State Attorney’s Office for the 1st Judicial Circuit.

“I did it to learn how to try cases and devote some of my career to public service,” he said. “But I found that I just really loved what I did as a prosecutor. By that, I don’t mean throwing people in jail; I mean achieving justice in every case.”

During his last four years as a prosecutor for the 1st Circuit, he headed up a traffic unit that handled all traffic homicides, including DUI manslaughter. In 1998, he left to become an assistant attorney general focusing on economic crime for Attorney General Bob Butterworth. He was director of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco and served as inspector general for three state agencies.

In 2003, then-Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to a four-year term as statewide prosecutor, where he supervised 40 prosecutors in eight offices around the state. His office prosecuted organized crime, fraud, public corruption and Internet crimes and saw an annual conviction rate averaging 95 percent, he said.

“That was because we did not arrest anybody until we were sure the investigation was complete and the evidence was sufficient for conviction,” he said.

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He said his biggest achievement as statewide prosecutor was a crackdown on adulterated prescription drugs sold on the black market. As a result, he said, a dozen people were indicted and lawmakers passed legislation to keep the drug supply safe.

“Florida became the first state in the country to require that prescription drugs that you buy in your pharmacy have a documented chain of custody to show their path from manufacturer to distributor to pharmacy,” he said.

Williams said the State Attorney’s Office under Meggs loses roughly a third of its jury trials, which he said is an indication the office is “not pursuing the appropriate cases.” He points to one recent example in which a local baseball coach was arrested after a shoving incident with another coach; the charges eventually were dismissed.

“Arrest is a stigma you can’t recover from,” he said. “It stays on your record. Even if charges are dropped, you have repercussions. It can certainly hurt your career and your reputation. I want the State Attorney’s Office to be more careful to weed out cases that don’t belong in the criminal-justice system and focus more on real crime.”

He said he would do a better job of recruiting and training prosecutors, re-examine the treatment of juvenile offenders in the criminal-justice system and enhance the use of diversion programs for like drug court and mental-health court.

“I am progressive in the sense that I believe in exploring new, innovative and cost-effective programs for certain offenders, and I believe in second chances,” Williams said. “But I also believe that those who are a danger to our community need to be prosecuted and incarcerated.”